GreasyChain wrote: Brilliant! So advances in tyres, wheels, frames, clothing, use of radios and power meters, beetroot juice, and Tramadol milkshakes. None of that can have any effect at all. Why did they spend all those hundreds of millions on research then?

Also micro dosing EPO doesn't give you the same results as whacking your haematocrit level up to 60%. If modern riders are on EPO then they're giving themselves a tiny advantage over not using it. So where is all your proof that everybody is just as drugged as they used to be?

There is none. Which is the problem. As anytime somebody points out that the level of tinfoil required to be a clinic cultist would provide hats for the whole of China, they are banned and the cult just keeps fapping along.

Just bolding the things that made me laugh for various reasons. Entertaining!

hrotha wrote:Pantani wasn't on some super exotic new drug in 1999 - he was on the good ol' EPO and other well-known drugs, but on a very refined program after a decade or thereabouts of progress in scientific doping. Riders in 2017 don't really need to be on anything special, they just need to have refined the use of the various drugs we have reason to suspect have come to the fore the last 5-6 years.

As for the impact of those other factors you mention, it ranges from "negligible" to "not very large".

Brilliant! So advances in tyres, wheels, frames, clothing, use of radios and power meters, beetroot juice, and Tramadol milkshakes. None of that can have any effect at all. Why did they spend all those hundreds of millions on research then?

Also micro dosing EPO doesn't give you the same results as whacking your haematocrit level up to 60%. If modern riders are on EPO then they're giving themselves a tiny advantage over not using it. So where is all your proof that everybody is just as drugged as they used to be?

There is none. Which is the problem. As anytime somebody points out that the level of tinfoil required to be a clinic cultist would provide hats for the whole of China, they are banned and the cult just keeps fapping along.

Tramadol is one of the drugs that have come to the fore hrotha mentions.

The other things about advances - of course they have an effect, but they're not exclusive to one rider or team. It's very rare that one rider or team has access to something that absolutely nobody else has, whether it be a legal or an illegal form of assistance. If a new technological advance is made, you can bet the other bike manufacturers will be on it like glue to neutralize their opponents' advantages as quickly as possible. If a new drug is discovered, the chances of a team forking out an exclusivity deal with its producers à la Balco is much more limited in a team of commercial sponsors, as there's money to be made if the drug can be obtained legally, and if it can't then the black market knows no exclusivity deal.

Even those that sold us the "marginal gains" story - who you'd have to be pretty naïve to believe weren't pulling the wool over people's eyes by now, as to truly believe they didn't do anything wrong and it was all a misunderstanding, you'd be crediting them with far too little intelligence to have got where they are without it being a complete fluke - credited the success to the "aggregation" of marginal gains, an important distinction which is all too often omitted by both the defenders of, and ridiculers of, the theory. In the kayfabe version of events (I use the wrestling term deliberately, in order to specify that here I'm solely talking about the "on-message" explanation, rather than intending to start another debate) each gain is negligible - that's why they're called "marginal" gains in the first place, of course - but the various incremental, "not very large" gains then combine together to produce a larger gain.

As for the "proof everybody's as drugged up as they used to be", it's completely fallacious to argue that this is the point hrotha is making. People aren't doping to mid-late 90s levels now, it's plain to see. In 1998, there were a dozen Emanuele Sellas wearing out their brake pads on switchbacks in the mountains; in 2008 he stood out like a sore thumb. Nobody except Jimmy Briceño is recording 60% hct, nobody is having to be woken up in the middle of the night to go spinning to prevent their blood from clotting (notwithstanding that that story was possibly apocryphal anyway). You can't see hct fluctuations of 20% now. That's probably the greatest achievement of the bio-passport - it may not stop doping, but it keeps it within much safer parameters and ensures careful management of levels; it's far from impregnable, as we know full well (Kreuziger...) but it's meant that the amount of doping you can get away with is much lower. The difference in level between a clean rider and a rider of comparable level doping as much as he can get away with is less, so the clean rider can be more competitive than he was 20 years ago - but it doesn't necessarily mean that the péloton is any cleaner, if the same number of riders are doping, just doping less than they did before...

Well..Contador claims he was on inferior equipment with his bike being 400 grams heavier at Specialized. Also, this was the reason for his bad performance in the past TdFs.

SeriousSam wrote: Peña Cabarga is like Froome's Mount Doom, the place where his great power was forged into fearsome weapon. He was never going to lose here

hrotha wrote:Pantani wasn't on some super exotic new drug in 1999 - he was on the good ol' EPO and other well-known drugs, but on a very refined program after a decade or thereabouts of progress in scientific doping. Riders in 2017 don't really need to be on anything special, they just need to have refined the use of the various drugs we have reason to suspect have come to the fore the last 5-6 years.

As for the impact of those other factors you mention, it ranges from "negligible" to "not very large".

Brilliant! So advances in tyres, wheels, frames, clothing, use of radios and power meters, beetroot juice, and Tramadol milkshakes. None of that can have any effect at all. Why did they spend all those hundreds of millions on research then?

Also micro dosing EPO doesn't give you the same results as whacking your haematocrit level up to 60%. If modern riders are on EPO then they're giving themselves a tiny advantage over not using it. So where is all your proof that everybody is just as drugged as they used to be?

There is none. Which is the problem. As anytime somebody points out that the level of tinfoil required to be a clinic cultist would provide hats for the whole of China, they are banned and the cult just keeps fapping along.

Tramadol is one of the drugs that have come to the fore hrotha mentions.

The other things about advances - of course they have an effect, but they're not exclusive to one rider or team. It's very rare that one rider or team has access to something that absolutely nobody else has, whether it be a legal or an illegal form of assistance. If a new technological advance is made, you can bet the other bike manufacturers will be on it like glue to neutralize their opponents' advantages as quickly as possible. If a new drug is discovered, the chances of a team forking out an exclusivity deal with its producers à la Balco is much more limited in a team of commercial sponsors, as there's money to be made if the drug can be obtained legally, and if it can't then the black market knows no exclusivity deal.

Even those that sold us the "marginal gains" story - who you'd have to be pretty naïve to believe weren't pulling the wool over people's eyes by now, as to truly believe they didn't do anything wrong and it was all a misunderstanding, you'd be crediting them with far too little intelligence to have got where they are without it being a complete fluke - credited the success to the "aggregation" of marginal gains, an important distinction which is all too often omitted by both the defenders of, and ridiculers of, the theory. In the kayfabe version of events (I use the wrestling term deliberately, in order to specify that here I'm solely talking about the "on-message" explanation, rather than intending to start another debate) each gain is negligible - that's why they're called "marginal" gains in the first place, of course - but the various incremental, "not very large" gains then combine together to produce a larger gain.

As for the "proof everybody's as drugged up as they used to be", it's completely fallacious to argue that this is the point hrotha is making. People aren't doping to mid-late 90s levels now, it's plain to see. In 1998, there were a dozen Emanuele Sellas wearing out their brake pads on switchbacks in the mountains; in 2008 he stood out like a sore thumb. Nobody except Jimmy Briceño is recording 60% hct, nobody is having to be woken up in the middle of the night to go spinning to prevent their blood from clotting (notwithstanding that that story was possibly apocryphal anyway). You can't see hct fluctuations of 20% now. That's probably the greatest achievement of the bio-passport - it may not stop doping, but it keeps it within much safer parameters and ensures careful management of levels; it's far from impregnable, as we know full well (Kreuziger...) but it's meant that the amount of doping you can get away with is much lower. The difference in level between a clean rider and a rider of comparable level doping as much as he can get away with is less, so the clean rider can be more competitive than he was 20 years ago - but it doesn't necessarily mean that the péloton is any cleaner, if the same number of riders are doping, just doping less than they did before...

I like this post a lot. The performances are more real today, especially if you pop in a video from 1994-201 or so of the attacks by some of the leaders. Guys like Di Luca, Menchov and Froome* really begin to stand out.I paid to watch the race on Fubotv. I could see, very clearly, because of the picture quality the spittle on NQ chin on the final climb. He was done and was trying to hide it and wasn't going to float away ala the old days. The attacks are so muted and barely sustained compared to the old era.

GreasyChain wrote: Brilliant! So advances in tyres, wheels, frames, clothing, use of radios and power meters, beetroot juice, and Tramadol milkshakes. None of that can have any effect at all. Why did they spend all those hundreds of millions on research then?

Also micro dosing EPO doesn't give you the same results as whacking your haematocrit level up to 60%. If modern riders are on EPO then they're giving themselves a tiny advantage over not using it. So where is all your proof that everybody is just as drugged as they used to be?

There is none. Which is the problem. As anytime somebody points out that the level of tinfoil required to be a clinic cultist would provide hats for the whole of China, they are banned and the cult just keeps fapping along.

Just bolding the things that made me laugh for various reasons. Entertaining!

hrotha wrote:Pantani wasn't on some super exotic new drug in 1999 - he was on the good ol' EPO and other well-known drugs, but on a very refined program after a decade or thereabouts of progress in scientific doping. Riders in 2017 don't really need to be on anything special, they just need to have refined the use of the various drugs we have reason to suspect have come to the fore the last 5-6 years.

As for the impact of those other factors you mention, it ranges from "negligible" to "not very large".

Brilliant! So advances in tyres, wheels, frames, clothing, use of radios and power meters, beetroot juice, and Tramadol milkshakes. None of that can have any effect at all. Why did they spend all those hundreds of millions on research then?

Also micro dosing EPO doesn't give you the same results as whacking your haematocrit level up to 60%. If modern riders are on EPO then they're giving themselves a tiny advantage over not using it. So where is all your proof that everybody is just as drugged as they used to be?

There is none. Which is the problem. As anytime somebody points out that the level of tinfoil required to be a clinic cultist would provide hats for the whole of China, they are banned and the cult just keeps fapping along.

Dumoulin clean beating Nibali a client of Dr Ferrari?

EPO whether micro-dosed or not is just part of the cocktail of PEDs. There are many different variations of EPO and not all can be tested for. Who knows what the latest PED of choice is, as testing is at least 10 years behind.

Check out the list Jimenez took.

CIRC reported some riders taking more than 30 tablets a day during GTs.

No tinfoils hat needed when looking at whether cycling still has a doping culture, just look at those running the sport, the teams, the doctors etc etc........they have not changed their ways, just the medicine cabinets contents and methods.

If he was talking tramadol I doubt he would needed to have taken a dump so urgently I am surprised they aren't using tapentadol, a fairly new synthetic opiod, like a stronger version of tramadol

in a fair side of things- Dumoulin's performance in the last ITT was a "healthy one" and consistent with a rider already tired/exhausted after a hard 3rd week filled with hard mountains- IOW Tom did not pull and E.T. ride despite his TTing skills over the others. In fact- Quintana's ITT today was extraordinary having all things considered.....

I'd say Dumoulin's first TT performance is still way more suspicious than any of his climbs in the Giro - where he generally lost time and cracked once. But I guess we're used to him putting in ridiculous TTs now, so it's not as shocking.

His Oropa performance was something (watts coming later this week but the trainers said they will be false already, haha) but that stage to Bornio was ridiculous. I recall on Dutch TV how ten Dam even told how he just kept screaming ''harder'' and wanted to sprint back but they just told him to hold his pace, not lose his composure, ten Dam just let him go because he wanted to do it all by himself; ten Dam didn't want to go harder and ten Dam said he wouldn't listen. He has an even for dutchies unusual hot-headedness. With that in mind...

I'm convinced things will get more clear at his next GT when he can't picknick in the back and has to start making better friends (friends and not teammates because he will stay at Sunweb, despite his bad relationship with Barguil, something Dutch media already covered, Dutch media is so amazingly blunt btw) then just Jungels and Mollema (the former not good enough and Dutch cycling has a culture that doesn't allow pacts).

It is a long story, I'll cut out a few details. It is partly because of Spenkenbrink (don't forget this name, this guy is the Dutch Dave, he is just as dodgy only not that well-known) that preferred Dumoulin from the start back even when they singed Barguil full-time after he won l'Avenir.

Short story; Barguil apparently isn't happy they build the whole team around Dumoulin after promising the same to him after getting rid of Kittel and Degenkolb although they're training partners. Dumoulin gets special treatment and Barguil doesn't get chances anymore because Spenkenbrink always shows up frustrated in the media not to lose his World tour place because that already almost happened last few years, and that is why they turned to Matthews this year even for Barguils races that Kelderman can't race (remember Spenkenbrink even wanted Dumoulin to ride the RVV and P-R). The Dutch guys aren't very positive Barguil and Dumoulin always goes for his own chances in race where Barguil is the leader and in the media the fans back them.

Also remember the best domestique in Sunweb is Kelderman (a good friend of Dumoulin from when they rode together at Rabobank), who isn't on friendly terms because Barguil had some words with him after Bagnères-de-Luchon last year, to the point where Kelderman will (probably with Dumoulin) head the Vuelta line-up and they'll send nobody with Barguil in the TDF, in fact, after his spat out with Kelderman Dutch cycling fans just started hating on Wawa like spoiled brats,.

Eviter wrote:It is a long story, I'll cut out a few details. It is partly because of Spenkenbrink (don't forget this name, this guy is the Dutch Dave, he is just as dodgy only not that well-known) that preferred Dumoulin from the start back even when they singed Barguil full-time after he won l'Avenir.

Short story; Barguil apparently isn't happy they build the whole team around Dumoulin after promising the same to him after getting rid of Kittel and Degenkolb although they're training partners. Dumoulin gets special treatment and Barguil doesn't get chances anymore because Spenkenbrink always shows up frustrated in the media not to lose his World tour place because that already almost happened last few years, and that is why they turned to Matthews this year even for Barguils races that Kelderman can't race (remember Spenkenbrink even wanted Dumoulin to ride the RVV and P-R). The Dutch guys aren't very positive Barguil and Dumoulin always goes for his own chances in race where Barguil is the leader and in the media the fans back them.

Also remember the best domestique in Sunweb is Kelderman (a good friend of Dumoulin from when they rode together at Rabobank), who isn't on friendly terms because Barguil had some words with him after Bagnères-de-Luchon last year, to the point where Kelderman will (probably with Dumoulin) head the Vuelta line-up and they'll send nobody with Barguil in the TDF, in fact, after his spat out with Kelderman Dutch cycling fans just started hating on Wawa like spoiled brats,.

Whoever decided that Dumoulin rather than Barguil was the GC prospect to bet on seems at this point to have been proven 100% correct. Still though, the idea that Barguil "doesn't get chances any more" when he is their Tour leader just seems bizarre. Sure he will get bad support, but Dumoulin also got bad support and Kelderman will too. They simply don't have good support to offer a GC man unless they decide to concentrate on one GT with two of these guys riding for the third. Even the biggest fan of Barguil could hardly imagine that it would be the other two riding for him if they did that though.

What's the complaint here supposed to be? That a guy whose best GT result is eighth in a Vuelta doesn't have undisputed leadership over an entire WT team?

Barguil had 2 chances with full support. Even from Dumoulin who rode him up to the front in mountain stages in the Tour.Everytime Barguil didn't get further than top 15. He had full support from Dumoulin again in LBL, but dropped earlier and in the end Matthews turned out to be the strongest.

I'm sorry but I think Barguil simply doesn't have it, and now Dumoulin won a GT and came close to winning another one 2 years before.. I don't think Sunweb will give up on Barguil just now, but if he doesn't come up with something remarkable this TDF he will either be a support man for Dumoulin or have to focus on Vuelta/Giro.

Complaining about support is hilarious anyway because it's the only way to become al eader in a GT, to go to Sunweb a few years ago when they had no climbers. Dumoulin had no support in the Vuelta 15 and almost no support this Giro (after Kelderman was gone), still did it. Barguil has no grounds to complain

Dekker_Tifosi wrote:Barguil had 2 chances with full support. Even from Dumoulin who rode him up to the front in mountain stages in the Tour.Everytime Barguil didn't get further than top 15. He had full support from Dumoulin again in LBL, but dropped earlier and in the end Matthews turned out to be the strongest.

I'm sorry but I think Barguil simply doesn't have it, and now Dumoulin won a GT and came close to winning another one 2 years before.. I don't think Sunweb will give up on Barguil just now, but if he doesn't come up with something remarkable this TDF he will either be a support man for Dumoulin or have to focus on Vuelta/Giro.

Barguil is 25 years old.He has finished 6t, 6th, 8th, 9th and 9th in LBL, Lombardia, sebastian and FW. He finished 8th overall in the Vuelta and 3rd overall in the Tour de Suisse. He has won 2 Vuelta stages.

It would be stupid to give up on a 25 year old with that kind of palmares, so i agree that i don't see Sunweb giving up on him yet.

I do think that he will have to accept that he either has to be domestique in the TDF (next to a free role/team leader role in other tours/classics) or simply not ride the TDF. And i'm not sure if Barguil is willing to be a domestique or not ride the TDF.